Club Penguin
Visit the official Wiki here. Club Penguin is an MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) involving a virtual world containing a virtual world containing a range of online gamesand activities, developed by Disney Canada Inc. (formerly New Horizon Interactive). Players use cartoon penguin-avatars and play in a winter-set virtual world. After beta-testing, Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005[2] and has since expanded into a large online community —growing to the extent that by late 2007, it was claimed that Club Penguin had over 12 million user accounts.[3] While free memberships are available, revenue is predominantly raised through paid memberships which allow players to access a range of additional features, (such as the ability to purchase virtual clothing, furniture, and in-game pets called "puffles" for their penguins through the use of in-game currency).[4] The success of Club Penguin led to New Horizon being purchased by The Walt Disney Company in August 2007 for the sum of 350 million dollars, with an additional 350 million dollars in bonuses should specific targets be met by 2009.[5] The game was designed for ages 6-14.[6] Thus a major focus of the developers has been on child safety,[7] with a number of features introduced to the game to facilitate this — including offering an "Ultimate Safe Chat" mode, whereby users select their comments from a menu; filtering that prevents swearing and the revelation of personal information;[7] and moderators (along with veteran players) who patrol the game.[8] The game has been criticized for teaching consumerism[9] and allowing players to "cheat".[10] History and Development Lance Priebe and Lane Merrifield, employees at New Horizon Productions (which became New Horizon Interactive in 2005) in Kelowna, British Columbia,[11] saw a need for "social networking for kids".[4] As Merrifield later described the situation, they decided to build Club Penguin when they were unsuccessful in finding "something that had some social components but was safe, and not just marketed as safe" for their own children.[12] Merrifield and Priebe approached their employer, David Krysko, with the idea of creating a spinoff company to develop the new product.[11] Prior to starting work on Club Penguin, Lance Priebe had been developing Flash web-based games in his spare time.[13] As part of Rocketsnail Games, Priebe released Experimental Penguins in 2000, which featured gameplay similar to that which was incorporated into Club Penguin. Although Experimental Penguins went off line in 2001, it was used as the inspiration for Penguin Chat, which was released shortly after Experimental Penguin's removal. Thus, when Priebe, Merrifield and Krysko decided to go ahead with Club Penguin in 2003, they had Penguin Chat on which to base part of the design process. After two years of testing and development, the first version of Club Penguin went live on October 24, 2005.[2] Club Penguin started with 15,000 users, and by March that number had reached 1.4 million—a figure which almost doubled by September, when it hit 2.6 million.[11] By the time Club Penguin was two years old, it had reached 3.9 million users.[14] At the point when they were purchased by Disney, Club Penguin had 12 million accounts, of which 700,000 were paid subscribers, and were generating $40 million in annual revenue.[3] Although the owners had turned down lucrative advertising offers and venture capital investments in the past, [11] in August 2007 they agreed to sell the company (both Club Penguin and the parent company) for the sum of $350 million.[3] In addition, the owners were promised bonuses of up to $350 million if they were able to meet growth targets by 2009.[15] In making the sale, Merrifield has stated that their main focus during negotiations was philosophical,[12] and that the intent was to provide themselves with the needed infrastructure in order to continue to grow.[4] On March 11, 2008, Club Penguin released the Club Penguin Improvement Project (CPIP).[16] This project allowed players to be part of the testing of new servers put into use in Club Penguin on April 14, 2008.[17] Players had a "clone" of their penguin made, to test these new servers for bugs and glitches.[18] The testing was ended on April 4, 2008.[19] In April 2008, Club Penguin opened its first international office in the UK for local support.[20] and Disney announced in June, 2008, plans to open an Australian office in August of that year.[21] They opened the Australian office in August 2008[22] and opened a Brazilian office in November 2008.[23] On February 10, Club Penguin released French and Portuguese versions of the game.[24] On June 26, 2009 a Spanish version, for Latin America and Spain, was launched [25] Buisness Model Prior to being purchased by Disney, Club Penguin was almost entirely dependent on membership fees to produce a revenue stream.[7] Nevertheless, the vast majority of users (90% according to The Washington Post) chose not to pay, instead taking advantage of the free play on offer.[26] Those who choose to pay do so because full (paid) membership is required to access all of the services, such as the ability to purchase virtual clothes for the penguins and buy decorations for igloos;[9] and because peer pressure has created a "caste system" separating paid from unpaid members.[27] Advertising, both in-game and on-site, has not been incorporated into the system, although some competitors have chosen to employ it: for example Whyville, which uses corporate sponsorship,[28] and Neopets, which incorporates product placements.[29] An alternative revenue stream has come through the development of an online merchandise shop, which opened on the Club Penguin website in August 2006,[30] selling stuffed Pufflesand T-shirts. Key chains, gift cards, and more shirts were added on November 7, 2006.[31] October 2008 saw the release of a line of plush toys based on characters from Club Penguin, which were made available online (both through the Club Penguin store and Disney's online store), and in retail outlets.[32] As with one of its major rivals, Webkinz, Club Penguin has traditionally relied almost entirely on word-of-mouth advertising to increase the membership.[33] Child Safety Club Penguin was designed for the ages of 6–14.[6] Thus, one of the major concerns when designing Club Penguin was how to improve both the safety of participants and the suitability of the game to children. As Lane Merrifield stated, "the decision to build Club Penguin grew out of a desire to create a fun, virtual world that I and the site's other two founders would feel safe letting our own children visit."[34] As a result, Club Penguin has maintained a strong focus on child safety,[35] to the point whereby the security features have been described as almost "fastidious" and "reminiscent of an Orwellian dystopia", although it has also been argued that this focus may "reassure more parents than it alienates."[36] The system employs a number of different approaches in an attempt to improve child safety. The key approaches include preventing the use of inappropriate usernames,[37] providing an "Ultimate Safe Chat" mode, which limits players to selecting phrases from a list,[35] using an automatic filter during "Standard Safe Chat" (which allows users to generate their own messages)[38] and blocks profanity even when users employ "creative" methods to insert it into sentences,[37] filtering seemingly innocuous terms, such as "mom", and blocking both telephone numbers and email addresses.[35] It also includes employing paid moderators; out of 100 staff employed in the company in May 2007, Merrifield estimated that approximately 70 staff were dedicated to policing the game.[33] It also includes promoting users to "EPF (Elite Penguin Force) Agent" status, and encouraging them to report inappropriate behavior.[35] Each game server offers a particular type of chat—the majority allowing either chat mode, but some servers allow only the "Ultimate Safe Chat" mode. When using "Standard Safe Chat", all comments made by users are filtered. When a comment is blocked, the user who made the comment sees it, but other users are unaware that it was made—suggesting to the "speaker" that they are being ignored, rather than encouraging them to try and find a way around the restriction.[35] Beyond these primary measures, systems are in place to limit the amount of time spent online, and the site does not feature any advertisements, for, as described by Merrifield, "within two or three clicks, a kid could be on a gambling site or an adult dating site".[33] Nevertheless, after Club Penguin was purchased by Disney, concerns were raised that this state of affairs may change, especially in regard to potential spin-off products[39] — although Disney has continued to insist that it believes advertising to be "inappropriate" for a young audience.[29] Players who use profanity are often punished by an automatic 24-hour ban, although not all vulgar language results in an immediate ban. Players found by moderators to have broken the Club Penguin rules are punished by a ban lasting from 24 hours to forever depending on the offense. [40] Enviroment Club Penguin is divided into various rooms and distinct areas. Illustrator Peter Welleman designed many of the first environments. Each player is provided with an igloo for a home. Members have the option of opening their igloo so other penguins can access it via the map, under "Member Igloos".[41] Members may also purchase larger igloos and decorate their igloos with items bought with virtual coins earned by playing mini-games.[26] Parties At least one party per month is held on Club Penguin. In most cases, a free clothing item is available, both for paid members and free users. Also the parties provide member only rooms in which only members can access. The Town The Town is the main Club Penguin room where all players arrive when they log in to the game. It has three internal rooms: the Coffee Shop, the Nightclub and the Gift Shop. The Coffee Shop A room modeled after a small coffee shop which contains a minigame called Bean Counters in which a player has to catch sacks of coffee beans launched from a truck, and it is also a main place for penguins to go if they want to meet each other. Also, the Coffee Shop is the only place decorated for the Anniversary Parties and where the party hats are given. The Book Room The Coffee Shop also contains a portal to the Book Room, a small room with a shelf on one side that links to the Library, an interactive set of books. Also, every year a new yearbook comes out, telling the player all about that certain year. The Stage The Stage was released in November 2007 in the Plaza.[42] Subscribed members may buy costumes for the play, an option that non-members do not have. The script for the play is located at the bottom-right corner of the screen. When clicked, a list of lines is brought up. Each month, a new play is released. Game Features Emoticons Players can express their feelings with emoticons. There are numerous emoticons, such as a happy face, a sad face, angry face, and winking. The emoticons appear above the avatar's head in a speech bubble. On December 5, 2007, the heart and skull emoticons were removed because players found these offensive, and were replaced with the flower emoticon. On January 9, 2008 the heart emoticon was brought back as a result of popular demand by players, suggesting that it could be used in a positive and caring way. Some emoticons are hidden when a player presses certain letters and symbols on their keyboard.[43] Items Members may use the virtual coins that they collect from playing mini games to purchase various items from a wide variety of shops.[44] Shop types include clothing, wigs, stage costumes, igloos, furniture, and sports. Members and non-members alike may also purchase new colors for their penguins and backgrounds for their player card. Each player has their own penguin card, which is used to manage the player's inventory.[45] Players may decorate their card by purchasing new backgrounds, clothing and other items.[45] Penguin cards can also be to display "pins" - new examples of which appear within Club Penguin every two weeks. Pins are free, but are hidden throughout the game. On January 4, 2008, Club Penguin hid their 50th pin,[46] a snow shovel. Flags are similar to pins; they also appear in the top left-hand corner of a player's penguin card. On July 27, 2010,Club Penguin introduced stamps, and their respective stamp book.[47] Stamps are earned from accomplishing goals in mini-games and on the island.[47] The stamp book displays all stamps that have been earned and yet to be earned. Pins are also displayed in the stamp book. Players can see other penguins' stamp books by clicking on their player cards.[47] Clothes are worn by penguins, which can either be bought or given out during parties. Only members can buy clothes, but those given out at parties are wearable by all penguins. Members' igloos can be upgraded into many different styles, such as a snow-globe. Some igloo styles are themed for parties, such as the Bamboo Hut or Log Cabin. Furniture may be bought for the igloos of subscribed members and can be used to design and decorate an igloo.[48] Flooring for an igloo (introduced January 19, 2007)[49] is also only accessible by subscribed members. Puffles Puffles are small, fluffy creatures that players may have as pets. They are available from the Pet Shop in blue, green, pink, black, purple, red, yellow, white, orange, and brown . Non-members have access to the blue and red puffles only, and may have no more than two; members may adopt up to 20 puffles.[50] Members whose membership has expired are permitted to keep their puffles, but they cannot replace them once they have run away. Puffles have health, rest, and energy bar charts to indicate their status. Puffles which are not "looked after" will run away from the player, and will need to be replaced.[51] There are ten official breeds of puffles, each with a different personality (as described in the in-game "Adopt a Puffle" catalog):[51] The Brown puffle has recently been discovered in a cave at the Wilderness Expedition in January 2011. There have been rumors about magenta or hot pink puffles in March, but there aren't any firm proofs yet. Club Penguin Times The Club Penguin Times is accessed from within the game and contains news about Club Penguin and features games and comics. It also has an advice column where a player can write to Aunt Arctic and ask questions about Club Penguin.[52] Any user can submit questions, jokes, riddles, poems, comics, fan art, and tips or secrets to The Penguin Times, which may be chosen and displayed in the next issue. Within the game, the Boiler Room under the Night Club contains an archive of newspapers from the last six weeks.[53] Video Games Nintendo DS Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force was released by Disney for the Nintendo DS on November 25, 2008. As members of the "Elite Penguin Force", players solve mysteries around Club Penguin. The game features mini-games from Club Penguin; coins earned by the mini-games can be transferred to the player's Club Penguin account.[54] A sequel, Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force: Herbert's Revenge, was announced on February 13, 2010 with a release of May 2010. A "mysterious penguin" resembling previously established character Dot the Disguise Gal is a major character in the game.[55] Once a player owns either of the DS games, he or she can connect to Wifi and upload coins to the internet game, which they gained in minigames, on their DS system. Nintendo Wii In 2010, Disney Interactive Studios announced plans for Club Penguin: Game Day!, a game for the Wii. It was reported that the game was released on September 21, 2010 in the U.S.[56]It was reported that the game will involve players working as a team trying to earn sections of land on an island, with the objective being to conquer the island. The game is based around several interactive games, some of which are 3D versions of games currently played and games which appear only at the Fall fair (such as puffle paddle) on the internet game. Players are be able to customize their penguins, choose their team (blue, red, yellow, or green) and any points earned in the Wii game can be synchronized with the internet game.[57] Coins For Change 2007 Coins For Change is an in-game donation available from December 14, 2007 to December 24, 2007, in which players could donate their virtual coins to any of three charitable issues: Kids who are sick, the environment, and kids in developing countries.[58] Players could donate in increments of 50, 250, or 500 virtual coins. At the end of the campaign, the New Horizon Foundation donated a total of $1 million to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and Free The Children.[58][59] The proportion of the 1 million dollars that each organization received depended on how many virtual coins were donated by players toward each issue.[58] For example, if most players donated their virtual coins to the environment, the environmental organization would get a higher percentage than the other organizations. Over one million dollars were donated by two-and-a-half million people.[58] 2008 Coins for Change returned on December 12, 2008.[60] This time a total of one million dollars was donated by two-and-a-half million people.[60] In addition to the donations made to the organizations, Club Penguin decided to contribute another $500,000 to support charitable causes in the areas where Club Penguin maintains international operations as they were so impressed by the enthusiastic response to Coins For Change.[60] 2009 Coins for Change returned on December 11 and ended on December 20, 2009. Club Penguin donated $1,000,000 Canadian dollars to charitable projects around the world. The money was divided amongst three causes as voted on by the players of Club Penguin with the donation of their virtual coins to: kid's that are poor, kid's who are sick", and the environment''. Over 2.9 million players participated globally, using over 4 billion of their virtual coins to vote for their favorite cause.'' 2010 Coins for Change returned on December 16 and ended on December 29, 2010. Club Penguin donated $300,000 towards building safe places, $360,000 towards protecting the earth, and $340,000 towards providing medical help. Players on Club Penguin donated over 12 billion virtual coins and filled Club Penguin's Lighthouse. 2011 The 2011 Coins For Change happened in 2011 from December 15-29 during the Holiday Party 2011. Disney announced that they will double the coins which they got. You can now donate up to 10K (K meaning thousand) Coins, which gives you the Epic Volunteer Stamp. 2012 The Coins for Change 2012 went on along with Holiday Party 2012 from December 20, 2012 to January 4, 2013. You were able to buy cookies at the Bakery to fund raise for Coins for Change. There will be a Coin Counter at the Snow Forts. The Lighthouse wasn't filled with Coins anymore. There's a glitch with this Coins For Change, as if you click on a Coins for Change-stand in a igloo when this year's Coins for Change ended, the donate coins screen will actually appear after the event has officially ended. This was soon fixed. 2013 The 2013 Coins for Change started on December 19 and will end on January 1. Different from the previous years, you can not choose which category you want to donate the coins to. Through donation amounts, Club Penguin has donated USD 1 Million to each to help the following organizations to do the following things all around the world: Reception and Criticism Club Penguin has received positive reviews and criticism: the site has been used by positive model when training police in Canada, and it was awarded a "kids' privacy seal of approval" from the Better Business Bureau.[62] Similarly, Brian Ward, a Detective Inspector at the Child Abuse Investigation Command in the United Kingdom, stated that he would far rather children experience a system such as Club Penguin before moving into social networking sites, which provide less protection.[63] In terms of simple popularity, the rapid growth of Club Penguin suggests considerable success, although there are signs that this is leveling out. Nielsen figures released in April, 2008 indicated that in the previous 12 months Club Penguin''traffic had shrunk by 7%.[64] A criticism expressed by commentators is that the game encourages consumerism[9] and allows players to cheat.[10] While ''Club Penguin does not require members to purchase in-game products with real-life money (instead relying on a set monthly fee), players are encouraged to earn coins within the game with which to buy virtual products. In addition, the "competitive culture" that this can create has led to concerns about cheating, as children look for "shortcuts" to improve their standing, and, it is suggested, this may influence their real-world behavior.[10] In the game's defense, Club Penguin has added guidelines to prevent cheating, banning players who are caught, and even going after those who encourage the practice outside of the confines of the game.[10] While on the consumerist front, some commentators have stated that the use of in-game money may help teach children how to save money, choose what to spend it on, and improve their abilities at math,[9][26] encouraging them to "practice safe money-management skills".[65] In spite of the attempts to create a safe space for children in Club Penguin, concerns about safety and behavior still arise within the media. While the language in-game is filtered, discussions outside of Club Penguin are beyond the owner's control, and thus it has been stated that the off-site forums can become "as bawdy as any other chat".[27] But even within the game, some commentators have noted that "cyberbullying" can still occur,[66] with flame wars potentially occurring within the game;[8] and the "Caste system" between those who have membership and items and those who lack full membership, (and therefore are unable to own the "coolest" items), can lead to players having a hard time attracting friends.[27] One criticism came from Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic Monthly: in relation to the safety procedures, she noted that Club Penguin is "certainly the safest way for unsupervised children to talk to potentially malevolent strangers—but why would you want them to do that in the first place?"[8] While views of the strength of this criticism may vary, the concern was mirrored by Lynsey Kiely in the Sunday Independent, who quoted Karen Mason, Communications Director for Club Penguin, as saying "we cannot guarantee that every person who visits the site is a child."[7] Category:Online games